123reg.co.uk restores customer email after DNS botch

Upgrade didn't go to plan

Customers of domain registrar 123-reg.co.uk are promised their communications will be restored tomorrow following a DNS cock-up last week by the company which left many unable to receive email.

At the beginning of last week 123reg.co.uk changed its control panel to allow users to update their MX records. That's when things started going horribly wrong, as a reader explains.

"Many people (one of my clients included) who have made any DNS changes online since Tuesday have lost all their inbound mail and still have no inbound mail working," he told us.

"At the time of writing the control panel is still available some four days on and anybody making any changes there now to any aspect of their DNS records - not just MX - will screw up their mail."

A technical support person at 123-reg told us today that the problem had been tracked down to scripting errors on the control panel. Developers have now fixed the problem and customers will be once again able to receive email tomorrow, we were assured.

He told us the problem had affected only a small percentage of its users and was less serious than first feared. ®